49 female prisoners, including two girls, face organized and systematic crimes in Israeli prisons

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club announced on Sunday that 49 female prisoners, including two children, Sally Sadaqa and Hana Hammad, in addition to 12 female administrative detainees, including the child Hana Hammad, and a female prisoner suffering from cancer, are facing organized and systematic crimes inside Israeli prisons.

On the occasion of Palestinian Women’s National Day, the club explained that the Hebron Governorate has the highest number of female prisoners, with 14. It noted that six of them had been previously arrested. Fidaa Assaf, who suffers from cancer, is also being held in prisons, subjected to deliberate medical neglect.

It indicated that the oldest female prisoners are Shatila Abu Ayyadah and Aya al-Khatib, who were detained before the outbreak of the war of extermination on Gaza and are from the territories occupied in 1948.
It emphasized that the arrest, torture, and systematic violations to which Palestinian women are subjected constitute one aspect of the ongoing war of extermination against the Palestinian people. The Prisoners’ Club noted that the period following the war of extermination imposed radical changes on the conditions of detention of female prisoners, accompanied by a series of crimes committed by the Zionist repressive system.

It noted that the most prominent of these crimes include torture, starvation, deliberate medical neglect, and sexual assaults, most notably strip searches and harassment, which the organization documented in a number of cases at the hands of female prison guards. This is in addition to psychological terrorism, such as threats of rape, systematic repression, and repeated raids, which include assaults with beatings and humiliation, forcing female prisoners to kneel while handcuffed, and insults that degrade their human dignity.

These violations also include methods of psychological torture practiced from the first moments of arrest, according to the testimonies of female prisoners. The Prisoners’ Club stated that since October 7, 2023, human rights organizations have documented more than 595 cases of women being arrested in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and the territories occupied in 1948. Accurate statistics are not available on the number of women detained in the Gaza Strip, except for those confirmed to be detained in Al-Damon Prison, whose number is estimated in the dozens.